The present invention relates to a method for accepting transaction reservation, in which charges to offer products or services are presented on a network, and reservation to pay the above charges for the products or the services is accepted; a system and an apparatus for accepting transaction reservation to execute the above method; and to a recording medium to store computer programs which cause a computer to function as the above apparatus.
In a shop to offer various kinds of products and services, there have been a time zone (hereinafter, called as a quiet time zone) when only a few customers visit there, according to characters of the products or services which are handled there. There may be quiet time zones between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and supper, for example, in a shop such as a restaurant to offer dishes. On the other hand, a shop such as a supermarket may have quiet time zones during lunch, supper and the like.
However, it may be preferable to shorten such quiet time zone as much as possible in order to efficiently offer the products or services. Then, there have conventionally been a sale time zone when the products and services are sold at discount prices lower than usual ones in order to shorten the above quiet time zone.
For example, in a shop such as a supermarket, products which should be sold on that day, and left unsold just before the end of business hours have been generally offered as a bargain at a discount price. Thereby, it has been realized to reduce the number of products left unsold to the minimum.
In each shop, there have been performed operations to exchange price tags, price tables, and so on showing usual charges to ones with discount charges to offer such time-limited services and bargain products (hereinafter, called as discount services). And, there have been calling customers in, handing out leaflets, and so on, in front of the shop to advertise that the products or services are offered at discount charges.
However, it is difficult to promptly perform the above exchanging of price tags, price tables, and so on, calling and handing out of leaflets in front of the shop, as they have required much hard labor. Therefore, there have been a problem that it is impossible to change discount charges defined at discount sales into appropriate ones according to momentarily changing conditions.
Similarly, it has been difficult to perform the above operations on a large scale, as much labor has been required. Therefore, there has been a problem that it is impossible for customers to easily obtain information that discount sales are in progress. Accordingly, there has been a problem that it is difficult to level this number of customers in the shop, that is, to shorten the quiet time zones.
Recently, communication networks, for example, the Internet has been rapidly widespread along with development of building up of communication environments, and then, computer systems offering various kinds of services has been realized, using such communication networks. The above computer systems may offer promptly and on a large scale with less labor in comparison with that manual labors.